Thursday, December 31, 2015

Amira's Birthday Painting

As it was being mailed to Manila (with the Koebel family Christmas parcel) Amira's birthday painting needed to be light weight and smaller this year, but hey it was almost on time!

On our back deck on a warm day back in May 2013, Meg Nicks showed me and Win Dinn how she makes acrylic "pours". That tutorial, which I have since forgotten how to do, yielded the rich background below. Until November of this year I never knew exactly what I would do with it, but it proved to be perfect for "Butterflies".

The richly coloured, very shiny surface of the first and only "pour" I've made

I went with Amira's mother's suggestion for the subject matter. Using a commercial stencil I applied the smaller mauve butterflies. Later I darkened some of the lower ones with thin washes of darker purple. Without any particular plan I painted on the first butterfly ...

... and then the other two. Laura had suggested glitter, but I couldn't see how glitter would enhance the painting. With my favourite stencil and Ferro, a paste by Viva Décor which provides a lovely relief, l added the flourishes to the top left and bottom right corners.

I wasn't happy with the dull, slate colour of the flourishes

The graphite colour of the stenciled flourishes looked dead against all the pure colour so, with a fine brush, I painted over them with intense, purple alcohol ink, which absorbed beautifully.

4 comments:

This is such a lush painting, and so right for Amira-in-Manila. I love the top photo - such a perfect pair, and the gorgeous butterflies suit her to a 't'. I can only imagine that she will treasure it more every day. xo